


Semantics

by gardnerhill



Series: 221b Ficlets by Gardnerhill [30]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Without a Clue (1988)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson gets a writing lesson from Kincaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Semantics

**Author's Note:**

> For JWP 2013 Prompt #27: **Like gold to airy thinness beat:** Pick up the book you're currently reading (or the closest one to you). Pick a random page, and find a description or simile. Use that - and be sure to tell us what your original description is, and what's the source. (My source: Kipling’s “In Error” from the collection _Plain Tales from the Hills:_ “ **Because [Mrs Reiver] was cold and hard, he said she was stately and dignified**.”)
> 
> This story is actually a double-221b ficlet - one 221b after another.

Bach’s Chaconne kept the pair of us company in the drawing room, one reading and one writing. We’d gotten surprisingly eased in each other’s presence ever since our reconciliation during the Leslie Giles case, and no longer grated on each other’s nerves. Well, not as much, perhaps. Kincaid’s occasional snatches of music-hall tunes or his giggle over something he read didn’t bother me – nor did my occasional muttering over my manuscript seem to disturb him.

“Lady Trelawny Hope,” I’d apparently been saying out loud, writing out my description of our most recent client, “stately and dignified…”

“Cold and hard, you mean,” Kincaid piped up from where he was engrossed in the _Police Gazette_ – or at least in the pretty girl on the cover. “You writing about that toff’s wife from that business with the bloody carpet?”

I winced at his language – and even more at the Cockney dialect that was completely at odds with his persona as Sherlock Holmes. “I’d planned to call it _The Second Stain_.”

He chuckled. “Think there’s a book by Anonymous with that title.”

“Fortunately most of the STRAND’s readers will have absolutely no knowledge of that kind of filth,” I snapped, tossing down my pen. There were times when my friend’s working-class ways rankled with me.

Kincaid laughed slyly. “Oh, you’d be surprised, Watson old boy. Saw them in the stews and the alleys as often as the sailors and workmen. They’d wear masks and they tried to disguise their voices.” He made a disgusted sound. “My lot can masquerade with the upper-crust a lot better than the other way ‘round.”

I laughed ruefully despite myself. The fact that this self-styled “working bloke” had had kings and ambassadors impressed by meeting such a stately and dignified gentleman as Sherlock Holmes was the proof. And my observations had made me confront many of my preconceived notions about my own class’ superiority.

Still.  “‘Cold and hard,’ Kincaid? That’s a harsh way of describing a lady.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s _very_ ‘stately and dignified’ when she’s with her peers,” Kincaid said, “but walk a step lower and speak with the wrong accent and you get a different tone of voice. Mostly demanding to know why the master’s boots aren’t blackened yet or whether or not a seven-year-old lad truly wants his supper if he hasn’t finished doing his work for the day.” His voice was flat.

I’d deduced a great deal about Kincaid’s childhood and background when I’d first laid eyes on him, of course. _Orphanage. Indentured work. Ran away to the theatre._ But it seemed I was still learning.

“I’ve got it,” I said, writing. “’Distant.’”

Kincaid grinned. “Bravo.”  


**Author's Note:**

> This is a double 221b - two 221-word parts, and both the 221st and 442nd words begin with "b."


End file.
